For this month’s Urban Jungle Bloggers post, Igor and Judith have asked us to show you our ‘plant gang’. So, I thought a few shots of my balcony plants would do the job perfectly.

When we got Otto a couple of years ago, I had to remove some of the plants from the balcony as he liked to eat them and dig them up, especially the climbing Jasmine and raspberry plant. Here’s the evidence…

We now have far fewer pots contained in a few crates that I salvaged from an orchard that I took school kids to many years ago. I love this time of year when everything is beginning to bloom and looking at its greenest.

From left to right: Geraniums, Snap Dragons, Camellia, Hygrangea, Rosemary. Photograph by Katharine Peachey.

The crates are perfect as they protect the decking from excess water and damp from the pot bases. Photograph by Katharine Peachey.

I have a few pots of herbs out here, too, and some early Sweet Peas ready to climb up a homemade frame. Photograph by Katharine Peachey.

I’m looking forward to adding more over the next few weeks and finally having some flowers that I can cut and display inside, which is the best thing ever.

Do check out Happy Interior Blog and Joelix.com for loads more inspiration as well as searching the #UrbanJungleBloggers hashtag.

Katy x

P.S. A few more snaps of puppy Otto antics on the balcony. Can you see why we had to get rid of the carpet?! Luckily, he’s not so keen on the taste of plants these days.

Last night I went to such a fun Pinterest party at The Cocktail Trading Company. We heard from botanist, James Wong, and had a go at mixing our own cocktails with weird and wonderful flowers (Electric Daisies that give your tongue electric shocks) and the cutest baby cucumbers you’ve ever seen. I really enjoyed listening to James speak about how much is possible in terms of growing your own food, no matter what type of space you have, and it has inspired me to do more on our roof terrace. Coincidentally, I have been up there a fair bit this week – how blissful has this sunshine been? – and so today’s post fits nicely with the theme of the party. James also spoke about using Pinterest as a source of inspiration for your garden and storing away ideas and being able to come back to them years later. Another coincidence is that today’s post is based on this pin that I pinned about three years ago. Thank you Pinterest UK, it was such a fun party (and yes, I do have a sore head this morning)!

I posted a couple of weeks ago about how much we need to spruce up our roof terrace and one of the major challenges is adding green to this urban roof top in the centre of London. I’ve been challenged to make over a very small section of the terrace and, as every little helps, I got to work on trying to cover up some of the horrible red-stained fencing chosen by the developers (if I had my way I would tear the lot down!). Each raised bed has this fencing behind it so we can grow climbers to cover some of it behind the beds. However, there is also fencing behind bench seats so there is no way of covering it, as you can see here, without turing the seats into planters…

Before

I’m desperate to try to cover up some of this imposing fencing.

The ever helpful Otto.

We always try to grow as much food as possible up here, rather than just flowers, and herbs are perfect as they are very hardy and can be picked and eaten immediately when we come up here for dinner and BBQ’s. Obviously, you can’t climb herbs up rather nasty fencing so I used an idea I saw years ago on Pinterest to plant into guttering…

Planting guttering

I bought four strips of guttering that is relatively inexpensive. I lined it with good quality soil to help the herbs grow and I didn’t drill any holes into it for drainage as one of the problems we have on the roof is the wind dries the soil so quickly.

I planted herbs, evenly spaced, across each gutter.Herbs wok well for this type of shallow planting as they do not need a huge amount of root space. Bedding plants would also be perfect.

I screwed in brackets for each strip of guttering.

After

And then I placed each planted strip of guttering into its brackets and gave it a good water. I did this on Tuesday and the weather was AMAZING!

I planted Tarragon, Coriander, Thyme, Mint (keep this separate to the rest of the herbs as it can take over), Parsley, Basil and Chives.

Hopefully, when the herbs grow bushier (and the coriander recovers from being out in the sun with no water for too long!) this fencing will not be quite so offensive with some lovely greens and handy for meals up here, too. I’d really like to do some more vertical planting along these fences. I’ll keep you updated…

Katy x

*This post was written in collaboration with MKM building supplies

Oh, hi summer weather! Where on earth did you come from?

We are so lucky, living in central London, to have a big communal roof terrace. It is the full foot print of our building, minus the lift shaft, so there is tons of space and 360 degree views of London and the River Thames. It’s definitely not the prettiest terrace in the world as the developers chose orangey stained fencing to divide it into sections and red brick for the raised beds and in an ideal word I would love to do a total overhaul of the whole space but that’s really tricky when you don’t own the freehold and you share it with lots of other people.  It is an amazing space though and great for parties, BBQ’s and sunbathing and PERFECT for this weather.

However, over the winter the terrace gets absolutely battered by the winds, especially because it is so high up, so when we eventually get back up here in the Spring, everything looks very sorry for itself and the furniture is knackered. So, I have decided to spruce up a little corner of the terrace now the weather is better, with a bit of help from Homebase garden furniture (and a less than helpful Otto who just enjoys climbing all over the furniture). I have tried to soften the edges of this urban space, which lacks lush grass and greens…

I chose the Peru bench and have given it a couple of coats of paint for added protection because it is so exposed up on our roof. I also really like white garden furniture, especially mixed with blues and enamel planters. I also chose the Kilo table, which isn’t supposed to be used outside but it is perfect for this spot so I treated the legs with teak oil, which will hopefully protect it against the weather and the top is metal so that should survive.

I really want my garden furniture to be as comfortable as my indoor furniture so I always heap it with cushions. I made the cushion cover on the right from an old grain sack.

I bought some lovely plants from Homebase to give my planters a new lease of life, as well as strawberries as we try to grow as much food up here as possible.

We now need to give the decking a good clean after the winter months as well as getting to work on sprucing up other corners around the terrace. What I really want to do is start growing climbers up around the perimeter wall so we are surrounded by green instead of rendered concrete.

We’re all set for long evenings, drinks and sun and Otto is looking forward to all of our neighbours giving him their BBQ leftovers.

Katy x

*This post was written in collaboration with Homebase but the views and opinions are my own.